There isn't usually an i in Google, but that could change as a growing number of people are starting to use iGoogle, the company's personalised home page offering that it hopes will become your home on the web.

Using iGoogle lets you personalise Google, by adding things like news feeds and gadgets, of which more later.

It also allows Google to personalise your search results, which it already does without telling you. If you live in London, England, for example, you'll get different search results to someone who lives in London, Ontario. By compiling information about the kinds of subjects that interest you, personalised searching can tilt the results your way.

Obviously there's a trade-off here. The more Google knows about you, the better the search results - and the better targeted the advertisements. And if you are concerned about your privacy, you may not want Google logging and analysing all your searches.

Even if you trust Google absolutely, bear in mind that information can still be disclosed by accident, by hacking or possibly by government intervention.

Searches can be personalised even more if you let Google track what it calls your web history, which is done via the Google toolbar. This adds details of the sites you visited, and when, to the list of what you searched for. It's potentially scary stuff.

As mentioned, opening an iGoogle account lets you build a home page out of a variety of elements, including your email on Gmail or Hotmail etc, and local weather reports. You can also add RSS news feeds, which are dull but useful, and gadgets, which are mostly useless but can be fun.

News feeds are provided by blogs and most other publications nowadays, so you can have Guardian and Technology blog headlines, Reuters, the BBC, and so on. Typical gadgets include mini-games (Sudoku, Pac-Man, Snake etc), a currency converter, world clocks, sticky notes, Flickr photos, Sky.fm radio and others you may already have seen on rival websites, or on your own desktop. There is also a gadget maker, so if you can't find what you want, you can roll your own.

Fortunately you don't have to cram 50 things on to your home page: iGoogle has tabs. You can put the few essentials on the opening page and stack the handy but little-used ones on different tabbed pages. The Google search box appears on all of them.

We've had personalised home pages for a decade or so, and Google has come late to the party. There are similar offerings from Yahoo and Microsoft, both of which have done a better job of integrating their applications, including email, blogs and messaging. But iGoogle is important in hooking users into Google's platform.

After all, you can switch search engines in a second. But once you've customised it to make it your control centre for the web, it takes a lot more effort to switch.